


and i can only hope (hope, that you feel it too)

by ArcadeGhostAdventurer



Category: Hockey RPF, Men's Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Kind of..., Loneliness, M/M, Martian AU, No Hockey Was Involved In The Making Of This Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-21
Updated: 2019-10-21
Packaged: 2020-12-27 20:35:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21124850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArcadeGhostAdventurer/pseuds/ArcadeGhostAdventurer
Summary: Only a couple handful of years ago, space colonies were madness. It was simply impossible, they said. The theory was inspiring, they said with a sarcastic sort of kindness in their voices, but in practice, it would of course fail drastically.Or, in which, Sid isn't supposed to fall in love. But he does. And it works out in the end.





	and i can only hope (hope, that you feel it too)

It’s white with blue flowers contouring the sides, quietly slipped in his bag years ago from his mom’s cupboard, one of the only things Sid actually wanted to bring in. The edges are chipped, and the middle is scratched from years of use. There is almost a visible dip in the middle.

Sid rinses and puts his single china plate onto his counter. It is the only plate he owns. Or more like, the only one he uses. Most of the Research & Development-issued antibacterial single-use plates and cutlery stay untouched, still in their packaging, on their shelf in the cupboard.

Sid shreds them and uses them as soil humidifiers as the stock increases with every supply package. He uses his hands for everything else.

\---

Only a couple handful of years ago, space colonies was madness. It was simply impossible, they said. The financiers were faced with the disdain of the other advocates in the space exploration industry. There was a lot of whispering behind backs, not only in between the businessman but also in the labs. Everyone thought it would explode in their hands, like a grenade whose pin was pulled with no thought given to when it would be thrown. The theory was inspiring, they said with a sarcastic sort of kindness in their voices, but in practice, it would of course fail drastically. 

That was about twenty years ago. In those twenty years, the team that sent Sid and many others onto distant planets has been awarded more than twenty prizes for their dedication and contribution to various science fields and humanity. Sid has been physically there to see only three of them being received by his colleagues.

\---

“… But if Sens beat Rangers, then it good for us, they get no points! If Ducks win, that good too but also that kinda little chance, all injuries you know…”

Geno talks about various teams’ playoff chances in great detail. It’s their  _ thing _ , when Sid is busy with some sample or report, Geno is just… There. Talking. Sid doesn’t really remember NHL hockey anymore. He is pretty sure he could still find the net if someone gave him some skates and put him on the ice. He feels like it’s just in him, somewhere. Hockey is like swimming for him: once learned, never forgotten. But the teams, players… They are only faded memories. Most of the Earth, to be fair, is faded memories.

So Sid focuses on Geno’s face instead of his words whenever he lifts his head from whatever sample he’s working on. His eyebrows go impossibly high when he talks about things he likes, his forehead crinkles. His eyes are warm. His hands are everywhere when he gets excited. He licks his lips a lot. If Sid thinks about those lips at times when they are not in front of him, they are only thoughts. 

Geno startles when his dog jumps onto his lap, eager to steal as much time as he can from his owner before anyone realizes there is a petin the screening room. Most of the people who work in the headquarters also kind of live there too. Mission Control is quietly busy all the time, but Geno says you learn which rules you can break over time, about which things the supervisors will look the other way and about which they will not. There are rules you cannot break, shouldn’t break. Or at least, it says so, just in the first couple pages of the training program booklet, simply stating that no personal belongings or clothes other than authorized apparel are allowed in the screening room. This is the one rule that shouldn’t ever be broken, but by some kind of unwritten law is broken by everyone. It is never talked about. There is a reason for that.

For an outsider, it’s a regular rule. Preserves the order and professionalism of the working space. Of course, at a space missions control base you should wear your uniforms and eliminate any personal items. Simple.

Anyone who has ever worked in the screening room though, knows that it has nothing to do with professionalism. The lack of personalization, individuality, is to keep a brain disconnected from everything familiar sane, but not so aware that it will long to come back. It is to stay connected with all the space travellers that give their lives away in exchange of knowledge, but not so attached that they would be missed.

(They are always missed.)

The screening room has a high suicide rate. Because crashes, foreign planets, and unpredictable conditions of the void are the least concerning factors. Rather, most concerning is the very predictable nature of humanity, to clutch to their own kind in whatever way. Still, travellers leave the Earth and screeners lock themselves between four walls and they get attached, become each other’s family and live and die together. Whether naturally or by choice.

It’s a vicious cycle that gives and takes incomparable things.

Geno came for one hour, as scheduled, every day for the first year. He was friendly. He updated Sid on the recent world events or news, or offered random facts when other topics ran dry. Hockey was what made the first crack in the ice. As the years went by, their conversations became more and more about them as human beings, with wishes and dreams and interests, rather than the world news or supply shipping checks. Or keeping Sid sane.

So, mad he went. 

It was violent for a day or two, when he first realized he had fallen in love with Geno. He didn’t pick up his calls for the first day, sending a quick message saying he had a minor emergency in the greenhouse. Then he actually went to the greenhouse and freaked out there. He potted one of the squash plants and named it Sam. He took it inside and tried to talk to it. Then he felt even madder. So he laid in bed until he needed to pee. 

Then he picked up a very prickly Geno’s call and… 

Nothing, he realized. Nothing much.

Geno is only an image on a screen. And Sidney has… Thoughts. He can’t even bring himself to call them fantasies when it’s just so impossible for his solitude ridden brain to imagine the affection attached to another person. So Sid realizes, like most things, love and affection also have become an abstract concept for him. 

Sid, and people like him, die on the way of things so great they cannot quite explain them even to themselves, living light years away from humanity. So, he assumes, whatever state he is in doesn’t make much difference in the end.

Worse to think about is the fact that, for Geno, Sid is only a voice from a speaker. There is no image for Geno, no return camera showing an image like he receives from the screening room. And still, he comes every day for several hours, sometimes multiple times, sits in that red turning chair and speaks. Sometimes looks deep into the camera that carried his voice all the way to the galaxy’s end. Sometimes he turns in his chair or rolls himself back and forth. And Sid has no idea what actually drives him, or all the other screeners, to do this, break rules to sit in front of a camera in an empty room and hear a voice possibly broken and scratchy with static. 

But it’s only one side of Sidney that wonders. The other side sits in his own chair, pleasantly warm, and basks in the only familiar thing it knows. Geno.

Geno has been Sid’s companion for years, in a platonic way but still… He was the only person Sid has been in contact with for the past fifteen years. And even though the same cannot be said for Geno, Sid tries not to think about Geno’s life outside of the four walls of the screening room at moments like this, when he pushes whatever he was doing aside to only look at Geno. Only  _ talk  _ to Geno. It’s nice, he supposes, it’s nice indeed.

\-----

When Sidney slowly wakes, his whole world is fixed on just one bead of sweat rolling down the line of his spine and slightly to the side, joining the wetness that makes his shirt cling to his skin. It doesn’t take long for his sleepy brain to register the suffocating heat under the covers and the stench of his own perspiration lingering in the air. Still half asleep, he goes to adjust the thermostat, pushes back the hair sticking to his forehead and melts into the bed as soon as he throws himself onto the duvet.

It takes him a moment to open his eyes, to jolt up and run into the main room completely awake and type in his direct keycode for the Mission Support.

\---

Sid doesn’t go outside much on Blue Occam, if he can help it. He has seen its dark, misty barrenness enough while he was setting up the rooms, when he was first deployed. There are accordion corridors that bind all the rooms and greenhouses together. Sidney spends most of his time in the main room, either working or chatting with Geno. And really, there is no need to go outside and look at the rocky plains going on and on under a permanently dark and cloudy sky. 

It’s a habitable rogue planet like all other habitable rogue planets. It has no sun, no discernible orbit. The temperature fluctuates, though it overall stays within reasonable parameters. Mission Control checks his position every three years. But it has water, a thick atmosphere that traps the water inside, periodic rains and farmable soil. No matter how much Sid hates thinking of his job like as if he is a huge guinea pig for a huge experiment, he is here for a test. He and other travellers are out to find the limits of the universe’s supplies to humanity, or maybe prove the limitlessness of the human exploration. There is no need nor time for philosophical thoughts under this sky. Sid does what he has to do. He works, he talks to Geno, he lets the central system’s clock set his routine, and he tries not to think too much about the empty skies outside his rooms. When it rains, it rains hard. On those days, Sid cracks the main door open and closes it when his AC beeps. And as a rule, tries not to think about the blue skies of the earth or about bright, raw mornings or shimmering sunsets. It’s an habit by now to suppress those thoughts. Well… Not  _ thinking  _ doesn’t work, maybe, but Sid has gotten better at not  _ acknowledging  _ longing thoughts in the last eight years. 

Right now though, as the central display slowly blinks “Getting Connected To Support Line” in a false tranquility, Sid runs to the door and rips it open. 

From inside, the cool air whooshes out as a suffocating humidity brings his breathing to a halt. But more than that, it’s what Sid sees before him that makes his knees buckle. In the distance, there is a burning white line, barely peeking out of the horizon, fading into yellows and reds. His hand falls from the doorknob. In the eight years he has spent on Blue Occam, there has never been light in the sky. Not even once, Because rogue planets don’t orbit stars. They don’t orbit anything. 

Eight years.

It means that his last checkpoint recorded by the Mission Control was two years ago,and the next one is a year away. For the last two years, he has been slowly circling into fire, out of everyone’s knowledge.

Sid takes a deep breath and squares his shoulders. He knew this day would come. Maybe not this early, maybe not for, say, at least fifteen years. Maybe twenty. But he has been trained for this, and accepted the risks, and now that he is faced with the blinding light slowly crawling up the sky, he finds himself… Resigned. He pulls the door closed and ups the A/C in the greenhouses from the tiny control panel by the entrance. The temperature light goes down and he goes to acknowledge the beeping at the central display. He sits into his chair, puts his keys into the panel. Turns.

And closes his eyes. 

\---

It takes time for the document log to fully load. While the file names continue to appear on the screen, Sid putters around his desk, sitting down and getting back up again to reach for another pack of scattered microSD cards, just to realize they are from three years ago. Filed away already, long forgotten. He goes to get a glass of water. He realizes he has laundry from three days ago, still sitting in a wet heap. A cold, damp smell wafts up when he dips his hand in. He doesn’t need to wash them. He has a steam cleaner but it makes everything smell almost dusty. He used it a couple of times when he first set up, he doesn’t need that either now. 

He gets up and walks to the greenhouse doors just to turn back halfway around and slump back into his chair. He pulls up the footage from surveillance cameras from his laptop. Zooms in, zooms out. Zooms back into the leaves. The greens are a little wilted. The woody ones are looking a tad better. Sid can’t decide if there is any purpose in further conserving them.

He ups the greenhouse A/C anyway.

He sags in his chair. Lets his head drop onto the headrest, closes his eyes.

Waits. And waits.

Sid almost gives himself a whiplash when his main screen beeps at him, signaling an incoming call. He didn’t expect Mission Control to reach him so quickly, as his file transfer, his backlog of eight years, hasn’t even finished yet, there is no way of them knowing there is an emergency. He is right too, in some sense, it is not the Mission Control that’s calling him. 

“SID-” Geno’s sleep swollen face fills the screen, though there is no bleariness left in his eyes. “What happen?!” Geno’s ragged breaths echo in his mic, like he ran to the screening room.

“I-” Sid starts, “I mean the-” he goes to point outside behind him but then he remembers Geno can’t see him. His hand drops.

“Sid! What’s emergency?”

“Oh! I-” Sid looks over his shoulder in reflex, “I think I’m being pulled into LS-1602.” 

Geno’s eyebrows shoot up. He shuffles around for a map, or a glossary maybe. He looks down, and when he looks back up the main screen his face is so, so pale. Sid can see his mouth move.

Only when they get loud enough that the mic starts picking them up Sid understands that Geno is chanting “no,” under his breath. He flips a couple pages in haste. Then he gets up and leaves.

Sid is left alone in front of the screen.

He sits there. Checks the tiny file progress line from the side screen. Lets his head fall at the back of his chair. Waits.

When a figure reappears in the screen, for a moment Sid can’t comprehend it’s Geno who came back. Geno doesn't talk as he hooks up another laptop that is hooked to what seems like four or five hard drives to the main setup and taps away for a good half an hour or so. 

Sid waits through that also.

For a moment, Geno leans back to admire whatever handiwork he has on the laptop, then takes a deep breath. “Sid, I’m want something from you,” looking right into his camera, he speaks slowly but clearly, “Stop file transfer, go out and close main cooling plate.”

“What?” 

“Close main plate, Sid.”

Sid can’t find the words for a moment, ”But- Why?”

“It’s only way if you want to come back.”

“Geno, I won’t be coming back.”

Geno’s eyes go wide. Sid can see his right eye twitching, can hear him breathing into his mic. When he starts speaking his voice is tight and hushed, words seem to come out like he can’t speak fast enough. “Sid, it’s only way. If you stop file transfer now, then they say, ‘how we get it back?’ and you need close the coolants, burn the transmitter. Sid, they can’t afford lose ten years research, they come get you. I override the system but it’s only hold for tiny time until it recover, Sid, please. Go stop coolant plate, Sid come on.”

“I- I can’t- It’s just- Geno, I can’t.”

“They can’t afford lose you. I’m-  _ Sid! _ .” 

Geno looks right at him, or more like, right into the lense of his camera. It is almost funny to Sid, for Geno to be caring so much about a disembodied voice that replies to his daily banter only sometimes. Stilted. Alien. A biologist on the paper, a history enthusiast at heart to Geno’s tech craze and KHL love. There is a lot that goes unmentioned in eight years of what Sid can call a friendship only if he doesn’t think too hard about it. 

There is nothing similar about Geno and him. Quiet to Geno’s boisterous. Shy to his outgoing. Subdued to his excited. He can’t… He can’t think about it. For eight years, he tried not to think about it and-

He loves Geno. But then again, he has no one else to love. 

He doesn’t even dare to assume it’s healthy or that it would work.

That  _ he _ would work, if he was to be put back among other people. He has gotten the year long mandatory psychology course and pre-isolation therapy too. He is a part of this experiment; he grows plants and vegetables, he keeps reports and sends them back to Mission Control. That’s all he does. That’s all he is.

“I’m-” he starts. He can’t complete it.

But he must be, is he not. An experiment. Sid cannot comprehend any other way that Geno may think of him, other than something that you leave in the room. On Geno’s side, he is a bodiless voice only. That’s a fact you accept. You rely on them, but they don’t rely on you.  _ You  _ rely on  _ them _ .  _ They  _ don’t rely on  _ you _ .  _ They  _ have lives outside of the room,  _ you  _ are a part of it,  _ you  _ have no claim on it. You are  _ disposable _ .  _ Replaceable _ . And Sid cannot move, he cannot talk. His hands shake. 

“Sid-” Geno whispers, “Please.”

They both flinch when Geno’s mic picks up a sound from outside of the room. He turns away from his cam for a moment and Sid steels himself. There are things Geno can go back to. They will retire him. He can take his dog and go back to Russia and to his family and his friends and-

When Geno turns back to face him, his eyes are wet.

Sid huffs out a laugh, half hysterical, “You can’t even see me.”

“I’m see!” Geno perks up, mindless of a tear that rolls away. “I’m see! Sid, I’m see everyday. I’m-” He reaches for the cam, fumbles, looks around. His hands come back up with a pair of scissors. Sid hears a loud scratch, then a crack. The camera tumbles off but Geno catches it. 

Then Sid sees his own face, on a monitor identical to his, looking dumbstruck at himself. 

He looks like shit. 

Geno turns the camera around. “I’m see everyday, Sid. They-” He breathes shakily. When he rubs a hand down his face, Sid can see the individual eyebrow tendrils left askew. “Sid, they lie. Main Mission, they lie about many things- they-” he looks at the laptop beside him. “Sid, I’m- I’m know they- it’s- If was normal, if it was twenty years passed, thirty- Sid, it’s just eight, is not normal, it’s not supposed to- you’re not supposed leave. Sid, please-” His voice trembles down to a whisper, “we supposed to have time, more time left.”

“How much time do I have left?” Sid can feel his heart beating in his throat. Hysteria bubbling right below his ribcage, a nauseating sensation. He knows when Geno said that they were supposed to have  _ time _ , he was talking about a whole another concept. He cannot quite comprehend it but-

Geno’s breath falters through the speakers as he fumbles, looks at the laptop. “Three minutes.”

Sid looks at him,  _ really looks  _ at him. His hair in disarray, his sunken eyes, dry lips, his collar askew with a hole in the side. There are so many things he wants to say, ask and he- He imagined many things in many ways. Sitting in his chair, crouched in front of a squash plant, in front of a microscope slide, lost in shapes and colors, laying in his bed… He knows the clock is ticking. He knows if he can’t break the transmitter in time he will… Die. And maybe this could be it. The end.

And maybe  _ this  _ will be it. Maybe he will not be saved and maybe, even if he is, when he goes back on earth Geno won’t be there. He will be assigned a helper, a therapist and a bunch of other things will come and go and he will… Live. His everything unsaid and every feeling buried and-

“Sid.”

Sid jumps up and runs outside.

\--

Moment the doors close behind him, he falls onto his knees and retches. 

Outside, the air is thick. Soil compounds have started burning and letting out toxic gases. Or it is the air itself slowly burning, unused to a direct light source. He doesn’t know how long his air filters will hold and he doesn’t know how long his A/C will keep working. He doesn’t know if the Mission Control will send him-- or more like, his now un-radio-transmittable research-- a rescue team. He doesn’t even know if he will be alive still when,  _ if  _ they reach him. He turns to get back inside.

He dry heaves a couple more times but nothing comes out. His nose burns. His lungs burn. He lays on his side and presses his face onto the cold floor. On his main screen, waiting animation play repeatedly, looking for a signal that won’t come. Geno’s face is gone. 

Sid closes his eyes. His hands tremble. His lips tremble. He sobs, breath hitching, but no tears come.

\--

Sid misses Geno.

Part of him feels ridiculous for feeling this lonely. He spent eight years on Blue Occam all by himself, if you don’t count the vegetables. And Sam. He paces up and down the corridors. Sweats as if the heat outside is reaching him in invisible waves. He tries to remind himself to spend his energy efficiently and forces himself to sit down until the vein in his forehead pops out. And then the cycle starts again. 

The other part of him tells him, painfully frequently, that Geno was all he had all along. A new discovery for the botanical scientists everywhere: Gourds and broccolis don’t count as friends and emergency protocols go down the drain easily in real life situations.

He tells Sam that he doesn’t count though. Sam has been giving him seeds continuously for the last seven years and even though the heat wave has made him a little saggier than ideal, Sid tells him he is the one thing that has never let Sid down. It’s moral support.

After the feedback from the transmitter fades completely, Sid loses his ability to parse the passing of. He can’t sleep. He feels sick when he tries to lay down, as if he can feel the hellfire outside trying to eat its way into his rooms. At times, he feels like he can hear it; melting, creaking, breaking, burning.

He reads and rereads his reports, going back almost four years before he starts feeling like they all started to mix together in his head.

He goes into the preserve room and rearranges his most important samples into one nitrogen chamber. The firsts, the bests, the most fertiles… Not just tissue samples from plants, flowers, fruits and seeds but also soil and water samples. He takes out the plastic organizers, hands in heavy duty gloves, and painstakingly replaces every single sample tube. And back into the nitrogen chamber. 

One hundred sample tubes in every organizer. Thirteen organizer boxes in every rack. Fifty four racks in every nitrogen chamber. Enough place for seventy thousand and two hundred individual samples in a single chamber.

Sid has four nitrogen chambers. He has two of them almost filled each. One for tissues and seeds the other for soil, water and fertilizer. He keeps seeds from every generation of Sam too. For possible re-Sam-ing purposes. He brings out his logbook, starts up the third chamber and selects, one by one, which ones to take. If he can, at that. He doesn’t know if he will even be allowed to take the clothes on his back. He can't even ask. His transmitter is burnt and Geno isn’t here.

He hopes he will be allowed to take Sam.

His clothes, his sheets irritate him. He takes off his t-shirt but puts it back on immediately when the sensation of the lukewarm air on his bare skin leaves him feeling strangely vulnerable and ashamed. All by himself, he get hysterical to the brink of crying and then feels stupid. He sits on the floor, presses his back onto the plastic walls, places Sam beside him and strokes his spacious, velvety leaves; his yellow flower bobbing up and down with every touch. Sometimes, he thinks he can feel the heat eating through the plastic, eating through his skin. He can’t bring himself to stand up and leave.

He falls asleep out of pure exhaustion and he jumps back into awakeness with nightmares he can’t remember, guts lurching and and heart pounding. He doesn’t know if he sleeps for half an hour or an entire day. His main screen shows the startup animation indefinitely. Little ring of dots turning and turning below the “Connecting to the Mission Control” writing. In any other situation, he thinks he would have found it funny that nothing in his computers work right, now that their bound with the Mission Control have been severed. The computers that enable far space travel and foreign planet colonization can’t show him the God damned hour. He leans his head back and closes his eyes.

Then hears the boom.

The first thing that comes to his mind is a memory of when he was eight and sneaked away from the family table, against his mother’s warnings and hid behind the barricades they built around the fireworks to watch them up close. What he got from that experience though was temporary deafness, enough fear for a lifetime and a lecture from his mom that he couldn’t quite hear. He couldn’t even see the fireworks. Just the cracking explosion that resonated in his gut.

A rescue team.  _ The _ rescue team.  _ For him. _

Sid picks up Sam and runs outside. His contamination detector starts beeping the moment the doors open, the air is heavy with dusty gases. A taste like iron and dust covers his tongue with every breath. Like blood, metallic, as if he bit his tongue. The fog glows with the light of the star behind it, he guards his eyes with his hand to look up. The once moist soil is now dry and brittle. With every step, Sid takes away from the doors, the ground crackles and turns to dust under his feet.

A sob gets lodged in his throat. 

He feels shamefully, selfishly happy that he got to be close to the Solar System. Close to Earth. Close enough to get a rescue team all to himself. Close enough to return.

Eight years. It will not be easy. He can’t even think at this point, looking at the white figure in the sky get closer and clearer. 

He is going back to Earth.

\--

Sid feels like a scrambled egg as he steps down onto the platform on earth. Earth. He was so far away, supposedly, but he is here now, and it took only months. He wonders what else had been a lie. How much of it has been, still is a lie? It shakes something in his core. Scientists and doctors in hazmat suits surround him. Take his blood. Wash him in anti-contamination chambers with vile smelling liquids. They take Sam away. 

Sid feels drained, not only because of the flurry of activity but  _ people _ surrounding him, talking to him, at him, asking questions two, three at a time and he is shaken. He had forgotten. _ I will remember, _ he tries to tell himself, _ I will remember how to be human again _ . 

He is put in a room that could easily be a regular hospital room if it wasn’t for the two way mirrors. He feels watched. He feels like head of over-steamed broccoli. Ready to crumble away at the slightest touch. Nothing is the way he is used to in here. He cannot go to sleep.

\--

They assign a therapist to him immediately. He doesn’t trust the woman. Not after everything, the moment when he saw himself on Geno’s computer screen plays over and over in his head like a skipping tape. But he doesn’t feel like he has many choices. He doesn’t feel like he has any choices, to be frank but then again he is here now. And he has to play along.

“I think... It’s like, you want something, and you get it but it turns out it wasn’t really what you wanted in the first place?” Sid fiddles with the hem of his sweatshirt. 

“Did you want to come back to earth when you were on your mission? Was it a constant feeling or an impulse?”

Sid thinks, how much of it was a genuine want to come back to earth, really? How much of it was that he wanted to see Geno?

“I don’t know,” he sighed, “I never really thought it through, you know, I never really thought about what it would be like to,” he gestured to himself and her, sitting separated by glass, “actually be back. Just, seeing my mother, my dog again. Things like that.” He shrugged.

“You knew you wouldn’t be back when you signed up for this though.” 

“Oh, for sure,” and oh, how hypocritical, how comical it is that you must say that, Sid thought. While we are sitting here. And I am back.

\--

After a couple weeks of blood tests and X-rays and MR scans and hours upon hours of Sid wondering if he is really on earth or not (Maybe this is another planet, occupied, maybe that was how they were able to get him here, not a new motor, not a new thruster engine technology… Just lies, more lies.) someone in a hazmat suit brings in Sam.

It’s Geno.

And that is enough to make Sid finally let go of all the emotions he had been bottling up and putting on the shelf. To seem stable. To seem normal. To give the impression that of course, sure, certainly he would be able to adapt to life back on earth after eight fucking years of near complete isolation.

“But  _ is _ complete isolation Sid,” Geno says. They laugh because hazmat suit  _ of course _ is not absorbent and when Geno goes to dab at his cheek, the tears just roll off.

Something in his eyes tells Sid they are indeed being watched. It’s the same look he wore for the past eight years when he would come in wearing his uniforms because it was an inspection day. Sid had his own, “Hello sir, how are you?” face for those instants, and Geno knows. A slight twitch of his nose.

He is so tall. He makes fun of Sid for being so short. Sid has to lift up his head every time he wants to speak to him and it’s so reminiscent of the times that he looked up at his terminal screen that it gives him a whiplash of emotions. 

Sid is here. Geno is here. But not yet. Not yet. 

There are so many things Sid wants to tell him, to ask him but he needs to wait. 

So he waits.

\--

Geno is appointed to acclimate him to the world again. Of course he is. He is the one who goes to Sid’s family to tell them yes, I come with news; no, not bad news; we know you were told this would never be possible, so if you decide not to make contact that is okay but Sid is back; yes, he is real; no, he is not hurt but you will have to wait. 

They panic together in Sid’s room before Geno goes to make the call, then Sid panics while Geno is gone and then they panic, once again together, when he comes back. Geno tells him that they are ready to give him his old room back, whenever he is ready, if he wants to go back of course. Sid is not sure. He tells Sid they want to come over and see him as soon as he is released though, and Sid is very on board with that. 

He will see his mother and his father and his sister. It’s weird. He feels disconnected. They will have changed. And he wouldn’t recognize them if he saw them on the street but they are his family and they will come to see him.

\--

Geno sits with him and they watch hockey. Out of the hazmat suit, he looks real. And unreal at the same time. Sid turns to him and expects to see him grainy, expects to see him sitting in a turning chair and not by his side, on the same couch.

He wants to touch him but he doesn’t know how. He doesn’t know what it is that he wants. Intimacy? Friendship? Love? A hug or a kiss? Or both?

Or more.

And then he thinks about how he awkward he feels when other people touch him. Because other people do that now. Now that Sid has been cleared from any bacteria or viruses that might have evolved differently on him during his time in space and has been vaccinated to an inch of his life to ensure he is not immunocompromised, he is going into the labs and working through the data he brought back. 

They touch his arm, lean to his side, pat him on the back… Sid’s brain is going in circles, do people just touch each other like this all the time or are these people  _ specifically instructed to touch him _ to figure out how he will react? 

Then he feels stupid. 

But he remembers the feeling, the lingering feel of a hand on his body. How it did something to him, created an uneasy feeling in his stomach. He doesn’t want to taint his time with Geno with that feeling. But he doesn’t know how to let go either.

So they sit down and watch grown men slam each other into the boards and Sid tries to remember how  _ that _ felt, back then, when he was little and would skate on ice and battle for the puck. What it used to feel like, not to be afraid of touch, hell, being hit even… 

It’s been a long time since he’s seen any ice.

\--

When he starts to work with the data lab, to unpack and decipher the encrypted files, is when Sid  _ realizes _ . 

He knew his data transmit hadn’t been over when Geno responded. In fact, it still had been going when his humanless extraction pod had docked on the planet. Beeping with a blinking light that said  _ upload processing _ . It had been taking that long because it hadn’t been processing shit.

Something had blocked the signal. They say it might have been the close proximity of the planet’s sun, the sonic blasts; the radioactive waves, not strong enough to fry the equipment but strong enough to interfere. 

Sid knows it was Geno. And he knows these people are not looking into it knowingly, not digging into the system history for past transactions to compare because what’s done is done. Sid is here. The information is here. The experiments are more successful than not and that’s all that matters.

But that idiot, that sentimental beanpole had seen the incoming signal and had fucking pressed  _ decline _ .

Sid cannot afford to cry in front of anybody again so he holds off until he is in the shower. He cries and cries until he can feel his head throb under the shower head because it’s a promise, it’s a sign that shows Geno wanted him here just as much as Sid wanted to be by his side. 

Enough to risk, not just being fired or anything, oh no, but an actual life sentence in prison for the chance of Sid being brought back.

And that’s, touching. Really. An emotion Sid cannot quite explain, even to himself, with words. He wants to say he’s in love. But the words don’t quite explain what he’s feeling.

\--

He goes outside, to the gardens and it’s alright, at first. Until it isn’t. 

It’s such a clear day. The sky is so blue, the sun is so bright, the grass is so green and the air… God. The air is so fresh. 

So he just sits on a bench and cries. One guy from the data lab sits with him and talks to him about his day. How his wife is pregnant with their second child and that the ultrasound says that this will be a girl too. How his daughter is excited to become an older sister and play dress up games with her new baby sister already. How they are so happy they didn’t give away her baby clothes because now they don’t have to do that shopping all over again. 

Sid wants to laugh but he just cries a little bit more. And he’s mostly all right. The Data Guy claps his shoulder and leaves when he’s no longer crying and is fully up to date on his daughter’s adventures with the house cat. 

He calls Geno and Geno is there in a heartbeat. 

They sit on the grass, flicking the ants off of themselves as they tried to climb back over and over again. Sid feels the wind on his face and it’s weird. It’s like a touch but it’s not. And he doesn’t know how to feel about it.

They watch the sun change colors, travelling through the sky and talk about Sid’s housing options and he finally drives Geno crazy.

“I’m bring you leaflet, leaflet… How house you want? I’m show you normal house, but no!! Is too big! I’b show you studio but no! That too small!”

“It’s not that it’s small Geno,” Sid rubs a hand over his face, “It’s that the kitchen is open plan and I don’t want the smells to-”

“Oh my God, Sid,” Geno looks at him with a comically incredulous expression, “open one window Sid! Is just! Open!”

And Sid can only laugh at that but a small sliver of dread creeps up into his heart, knowing he will be released one day and maybe Geno won’t be so close then. 

\--

Sid’s family is here and there are tears. A lot of them. 

They are changed, but somehow, they are still his family and he recognized them. He  _ recognized his sister _ . And that’s a thing he cannot get over because Taylor has grown so much, she is not a little kid anymore, not at all. But she still has the same eyes. The same smile that makes her cheeks puff up, that shows her teeth.

His mom looks tired. His dad more so. But they don’t look like strangers. And how relieving it is to admit that. That Sid had expected them to look like strangers. But they don't. They are his family and it’s a little stilted, not quite like it was. But it’s good. Still familiar where it matters. 

They take whatever little possessions Sid has, the lab issued clothing and Sam. And they move out.

\--

Sid decides on the studio flat. 

He has a salary. And a job. It’s so disorientating to wake up and go to work, at a lab, where he forgets that he is on earth and then the working hours are over and it’s a shock. Every day.

Only Geno knows.

Only he knows what a daze it is, still. Only he knows about how Sid still expects to wake up to recycled air and confined spaces. How distrustful Sid is, of everything. Only he knows of the  _ other _ therapist. Not the one in the labs, the one he keeps on seeing but doesn’t tell everything to. The one that they found together, that he goes to every week and tells everything to. 

Only he knows how much it turns Sid’s stomach to be touched casually, in the passing and he waits.

And that is what keeps Sid going. That he waits. 

Nothing is easy. Nothing ever is. There is a chance that Sid will never be fully okay with people, around people. He wishes he could say that Geno did not count but he does. It’s so painful to admit when he  _ wants so much _ but it’s how it is. Geno doesn’t push and Sid gets angry at himself that he isn’t getting better faster, that there are no landmarks, no solid achievements to push for.

So Sid buys furniture, makes a windowsill garden, buys matching plates and cutlery and calls it stability. 

\--

They make plans. 

They make plans to mark the days, to give themselves something to look forward to, something to check on the calendar. How long until they can eat Sam’s babies (Sid makes a casserole and panics to his mom on the phone all the way through)? How long until the lake freezes? How are Sid’s yeast starters are doing? Did he feed them this week yet? 

And it slowly turns into things like, when Geno can take time off? When can we have a coffee in that bakery with the fluffy apple pasties again? When can we go out for dinner or would you like to come over?

When can I see you again? Not for anything, just because.

It’s not quite the romance Sid imagined light years away. It’s better. It’s real. Not quite the I love you and not really a heated kiss but a weighted blanket to help him sleep, a call instead of a text when Geno knows he won’t remember the lab hours and will stay way past overtime.

Their lives merge into one. Little things like knowing it’s Geno who plucks the strawberries when they are not quite ripe, that it’s Sid who leaves the window open without bothering to check the forecast. Things that are a constant in their life, like Sid doesn’t understand memes and Geno loves kitten videos. 

It’s not easy. It’s never easy, honestly. And Sid thinks, laying under his weighted blanket that smells a little bit like Geno too, anyone else would have given up. Would have just let go, probably. 

Not them. And it’s really not like how Sid had imagined things would be. But here they are, and it’s good. It’s all right.

**Author's Note:**

> I had started this fic back in 2015. It was going to be a big one, a hefty 50K perhaps and that would have been what this idea deserved. But around 2016 I fell out of love with this fandom, with hockey and it sat in my Google Docs, unfinished until now.
> 
> I will not try to tell you that this is what I envisioned. I tied it up like this because I wanted to finish something. And I was tired. I just wanted this one out there because I really liked this idea, I loved the plot but it was never going to happen and I had to accept that.
> 
> Still, I hope you enjoy this, whatever this is. Mostly unbeta-ed. Comments are life or something like that... 
> 
> Look, I live for attention ok? Ok. Take it away, space fic.


End file.
